Finding my feet.

The anxiety hit me in Halifax. For weeks before I left, people had asked if I was nervous and my answer was always, “not yet”. I was sure that the nerves would come, but I wasn’t sure when. Turns out all it took was a few hours on planes, and a short wait for the final one before I left the country.

The week leading up to my trip was focused on spending time with my closest friends and family. It was an emotionally affecting week, leaving me feeling very loved and appreciated. To a person, my loved ones were excited for me, though sad to see me gone for an unknown amount of time.

Now, sitting at an airport bar, drinking a beer and eating a burrito, I began to feel the loss of those treasured connections. Well, maybe not loss, but the reality of the distance over which they would now span. I hadn’t even left the country and it already felt so far.

Nonetheless, my mind was set. I had done so much work to get to this point, I needed to take the final step. So, I boarded the plane to Amsterdam.

Arriving in Amsterdam

I arrived in Amsterdam, exhausted. My flight had departed Halifax at 11:45pm ADT, and arrived in the Netherlands at 10:30am CET. Just a short five and a half hour flight. I managed a couple of hours sleep, but not much more.

The weather in Amsterdam was as dreary as I felt, doing nothing to help my spirits as I boarded the bus that would take me to my hostel. The ride from the airport into the center of city helped somewhat, piquing my curiosity as I got a taste of what would await me over the next week. Bikes and bike lanes, narrow European streets, endless row houses, greenery, signs in languages I didn’t understand, and Amsterdammers going about their lives.

I stepped off the bus just in front of the main entrance to the Vondelpark, Amsterdam’s largest park, into which my hostel enjoyed direct access. The StayOkay Vondelpark hostel is a large complex of several buildings connected by covered walkways. One of which, dates to the 1890s and previously housed the Amsterdam Household School, dedicated to improving education and employment opportunities for women. It was on the top floor of this building that I would find my first room (yes, first, more on that later).

Luckily, my room was ready for me, as it was only about noon. I dropped off my bags and set out to do a little exploring. Though truthfully, what I really wanted to do was pass out on my bunk. So rather than let the jet lag win, I picked a random direction set out. As I meandered through the streets, I couldn’t help but feel a little put out. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but somehow this wasn’t how I thought I would feel. I was tired, sad, and unimpressed with all of the newness that surrounded me. Eventually, I found a bench along a quiet canal and pulled out my journal for some quiet reflection. The conclusion I arrived at, I needed a nap.

Hunting and Foraging

After my nap (which I kept to a respectable two hours), it was time to find some food. This is the first problem that I would need to tackle. Before leaving, I had set the goal for myself not to spend more money on food than I did at home. I set this bar at a fairly generous $30CAD per day, which typically included $150 of groceries, with the remainder being spent at restaurants and bars. I knew this would be a challenge, considering the exchange rate for CAD to EUR was sitting at about $1.60 to €1. So, the plan was to buy groceries and cook for myself, as much as possible.

This would prove to be a problem here, as the hostel did not offer kitchen facilities, opting instead to serve their own expensive-ish food. Despite the convenience, I wouldn’t be dissuaded from my plan and I set out to find a nearby grocery store, Albert Heijn. It was here that I encountered my first roadblock, I don’t speak Dutch.

English is so ubiquitous in Amsterdam, on ads, signs, spoken, that I hadn’t considered that that wouldn’t carry into the markets. But, with some reasoning, I was able to work out that ‘kip’ was chicken and ‘Italiaanse roerbak’ was a basic prepared Italian salad mix. Pleased with my cleverness, I took my bagged salad and pre-cooked chicken back to the hostel to mix together in one of the collapsible tupperwares that I’d brought.

It only took a couple of bites to learn that ‘roerbak’ was not salad, like I’d thought. Instead, it was something more like stir fry. My ‘salad’ was made up of mushroom, green onions, raw red onions, and herbs meant for the frying pan. Nonetheless, I soldiered on, mouth burning from the onions, determined not to let my $10 go to waste.

From that first mistake, things got better. I found a good breakfast routine at the convenience store down the road, fresh fruit, yogurt, maybe a pastry, and a small coffee. I’ve also learned that not all Albert Heijns are the same. There’s one about every 5 or 6 blocks and their offerings for prepared food can vary wildly. But, the upshot is that I’ve been able to enjoy a number of different salads that are legitimately tasty and healthy, quinoa, Italian, couscous, poke bowls. I’m spoiled for choice.

At this point, a week in, I’m only about $9 above my food budget and I’m not going hungry or yearning for more. Which I’m taking as a win. Though, I also haven’t had a pannenkoeken or stroopwafel yet, so maybe not a huge win.

(Also, a quick shout-out to my spork, it’s been the MVP of this trip so far.)

Exploring Amsterdam, Loving Amsterdam

Though my first take was initially pretty cold towards Amsterdam, it didn’t take long for my heart to melt. With each day I spend here, my appreciation for the city only grows. It’s a fascinating place. Immensely practical, form follows function here, but aesthetics are not forgotten along the way. The streets are well laid out to prioritize bicycle and pedestrian traffic over cars and motor vehicles. In my week here, I haven’t needed to bother with public transit, choosing to explore on foot and bike instead.

The city is dense, with three and four story row houses dominating basically every street. And yet, the atmosphere doesn’t become oppressive as a concrete jungle of narrow alleys like some other places I’ve been (looking at you Dublin). Even the alleys are charming, filled with plant life and gardens, and heaps of bicycles lining the lane ways. The ground floors of most buildings along roads are populated with every type of business that you can think of, generating the foot traffic that makes even neighborhoods far from the bustling touristy center feel lively. And don’t even get me started on the patios and street seating outside the restaurants and bars, especially along the canals. It’s a dream.

A quiet dream. Without all of the vehicles that clutter other cities, you can hear the people speaking around you. And they are speaking in every language. I’ve found that you’re as likely to hear French, Spanish, German, English, Italian, as Dutch in Amsterdam. I’m taken to understand that it is a city of transplants, filled with those who came and fell in love with its charms. And I get it.

Over my days, I’ve explored parks and streets and canals, turning left or right as the whim takes me. I’ve done yoga in the park. I’ve visited the Rijksmuseum. Walked for an hour to attend a free storytelling event hosted by Mezrab, where I made friends with a nice French woman, Chloe, with aspirations in aquaculture and sustainable fishing. And despite the rough start, it’s been a delight. I’m a little sad to be leaving soon, when it feels like I’ve only scratched the surface of this amazing city. But, it’s a big world and there’s a lot to see.

Hostel Woes

I knew coming in that living in hostels would be an adjustment to my normal living situation. I’ve lived alone for the majority of my adult life and I’m used to being in control of my environment. So, in preparation for this change in circumstance, I have counseled myself on the need for adaptability. Be like water, fit your container, go with the flow.

As it turns out, there should be a limit to how adaptable I’m willing to be. My bunk-mate and I got off on the wrong foot right away. After exchanging greetings, he asked if I was American, “No, Canadian. You’re Scottish?”, “No, English.” (Northern English, in my defense. And Western Canadian and American accents are basically indistinguishable, in his.). That was all we had to say to each other for the night.

The first night was relatively uneventful, but for the fact that my bunk-mate rose fairly early in the morning, maybe 5am or so. Not a problem in and of itself, but his footlocker was stowed beneath my bed, so he was directly next to me while he was rooting around in it for the next ten minutes. Also, he can’t see well, so he turns on the room light. Again, not a big problem, I’m adaptable.

The next night, things got stranger. As the room is quieting down for sleep, my bunk-mate is sitting on his bed watching his iPad, alternating between giggling and groaning, loud enough that I can hear it through my noise-cancelling headphones. And as he’s sitting cross-legged, every time he shifts, it rocks the entire bunk-bed. He goes on like this from midnight until about 2am when he settles down. Until roughly 4am, when he’s up again and rooting through his footlocker with the light on. Eventually, he’s done and leaves the room, to the collective relief of myself and the 3 other boarders sharing it.

Unfortunately, he returns an hour later and repeats the process before leaving again. And repeats, once an hour, until 8am. But it’s ok, everyone in this room is adaptable.

Here, the plot thickens (warning for those readers who may be squeamish about vomit). After a day and evening out exploring, I returned to find that the room’s shared bathroom, now featured a toilet with a thick coating of vomit across the seat and stuck to the bowl. Immediately, my mind jumps to blaming my bunk-mate, as he’s the only one currently in the room. However, I check myself. I have no reason to think that it was him, other than that he had been the one to most recently annoy me. So instead, I head down to reception and ask for someone to come clean it, which they do without complaint. When the cleaners arrive, my bunkmate swears that he had no idea about the vomit (though somewhat suspiciously, when he goes to check it out, he says that he can’t see it, despite it’s bright yellow hue).

That night, at about 2am, the sounds of vomiting from the bathroom wake me. Aha! So, soon I’ll know who the culprit is. My surprise cannot be overstated when it’s not my bunk-mate that emerges, but the resident of the bottom-bunk across the way from me.

The night passes, and we have another early morning wake up call. Though, thankfully without repeat appearances. After sleeping in a bit late, I got on with my day of exploration. Again, upon returning later in the day, I found vomit coating the toilet, and no one in the room but my bunk-mate. Deciding to deal with it after a taking a shower (which was in a separate room from the toilet), it turned out that I didn’t need to, as reception had already been informed and sent a cleaner.

I went to do laundry and returned to find yet another patina of puke gracing the toilet. Now, my bunk-mate and the bottom bunk puker from the previous night were in the room at some point in the intervening period, so it still wasn’t clear who the culprit was.

It was after the fourth night that things would finally come to a head. The bottom bunk had another late night kneeling session in the water closet. And my bunk-mate performed his early morning routine with lights on full blast. It turns out, this was the bottom bunk’s breaking point, and he went to reception to complain. Reception sent a representative to offer a mild chiding and issue a warning to my bunk-mate, who was, fairly, chastened and left for the remainder of the morning.

As chance would have it, I was about to head out for my afternoon activity when I overheard the bottom bunk, back at reception complaining. From what I heard, he was transferring rooms. This sounded like a pretty good idea to me, so I jumped on the same train. The desk attendant was very apologetic when I relayed similar concerns as the bottom bunk, though was surprised to hear about bottom bunk’s own nocturnal goings-on. It was from her that I learned that it was bottom bunk that had reported the vomit that had been cleaned up while I was in the shower. And again, my bunk-mate had plead ignorance.

At any rate, I was offered a bunk in another room, and a complimentary breakfast for my troubles. And thus I learned, adaptability must have its limits.

As a post script, coincidence again found me walking out of the hostel at a fortuitous moment. I was directly behind my ex-bunk-mate as he trudged down the lane with bag in tow, alleviating my guilt that I had abandoned some other poor souls to sleepless early mornings and unhygienic toilets.

Bird Corner

I’ve been going on forever now, so one last thing to wrap things up. A collection of the birds that I saw in my wanderings around Amsterdam.

Moving On

I’m leaving Amsterdam tomorrow, bound for the Hague for a couple days before moving on to Rotterdam. After a few shaky first steps, I feel like I’ve got my legs a little more under me and I’m excited to see what comes next.

And now, I leave you with the legally mandated photo of a windmill required of all visitors to Holland.